"Now is the time that Crown has to move if it wants to buy the company at a decent price. Once the (Star casino) capex benefits start flowing through to the bottom line, the share price might be out of reach," it said. Crown already owns a 4.9 percent stake in Echo Entertainment.

A Media Man spokesperson said "James Packer continues to make all the right moves. He will not be repeating any of the same kind of mistakes he made in Las Vegas, USA, a few years ago. Packer and his team have also made themselves more available for news media, knowing that they will get written about anyway. Lately, there's largely only positive news to report and JP even gives the tabloids a bit of fun stuff to run with once in a while also. Packer can also be thankful that his casino investments in Macau are paying off which is helping keep his bottom line more impressive than all other Australian based gaming entrepreneurs".